Okay ladies, when you’re stressed, rather than fight or flee would you prefer to throw a potluck? There’s good reason for that – and it’s a good thing! It’s a hardwired feminine trait, genetically speaking.
Melissa Kaplan’s lovely posting on Chronic Neuroimmune Diseases sheds some light on how we’re different (we knew that) and why it’s important that we band together:
“Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.”
Those connections may just be how we can make a bigger impact in changing the world for the better. So what to do? Here are some thoughts:
- Make time to spend with your women friends. Yes, work, children and significant others, the garden, the dishes, the laundry … are important. But they can usually wait. Put your oxygen mask on first so you have the bandwidth to tend to them – or better yet, give them your best. Your women friends are your oxygen mask.
- Collaborate on projects with women colleagues. It may still be a man’s world in many arenas, but it’s how we work best. Working together is not cheating, like it was considered when taking tests in school. This is the real world and cooperative skills are important. Synergy cannot occur without combination.
- Support and promote one another. Help a woman colleague working toward a promotion, running for office, needing backup so she can get a project finished. Ask that she help you with something – odds are at least 50-50 that she will, probably greater. (Chances she will if you don’t ask hover around zero – she’s busy, too, and how would she know?) Then you’ll both feel better and be further along.
The Huffington Post indicates that some women are not only approaching, but surpassing men’s salaries in the big corporate world, according to research from Bloomberg News compiled from proxy reports. That’s a great start, And I’m personally glad there are women willing to compete hard to win the seats historically held by men. They certainly are capable … and braver and more persistent than I am. But many, many more of us are out there in the trenches, or in our own businesses, and we’d all do better and feel better if we got more support … and had more potluck dinners.
A rising tide raises all boats, as they say. And as our boats collectively float upward on that tide, we can do more good in the world … leaving even more significant legacies.
What ideas do you have about how you can help a sister, and maybe even the planet and in turn the progeny we’ll never meet? Would love your comments here!